Listen, as per your advice...don't be so hard on yourself. REAL reality is very scary; perhaps we go overboard with being "safe" sometimes, but we can't always be charging into the abyss, no matter what the advertisers say. If you'll pardon another long comment...
Saturday a.m. I woke up with a real feeling of having to stand before God, not just the theory, but the fact. It scared me because it was so "other." It faded after 30 seconds or so, and I went back to sleep. That afternoon, D and I went to a restaurant with her parents to celebrate her dad's birthday. While we were finishing, we heard a POP--sounded like a really loud balloon--which I figured out pretty quickly was a gunshot. I pushed D under the table just before the gunman came in the dining room. He walked toward the kitchen, then turned around and came over to my table and looked down at me. I honestly didn't know whether he was going to shoot me or not--I thought I was going to die. I sat there crossing myself and saying the Jesus prayer over and over, but I really only had two thoughts: 1)God, don't let him see my wife, and 2)I don't want to die. D's mom very calmly said to the gunman "We love you. God bless you." He said, "OK" and walked away.
Needless to say, I'm alive, and no-one was hurt, Doxa Patri, but I felt guilty later on that I didn't want to die, that I wasn't heroic--jumping up and wrestling him to the ground--or even "commanding him in the Name of Jesus to stop", etc. Shouldn't I "Just Do It" or "Be All That I Can Be" or "Carpe Diem" or something?
I don't know, I still feel guilty that I couldn't say "Oh sure, shoot me, I don't care--I'll get to see God!" Sometimes the stuff under the surface is too scary; the safety of prose doesn't have to be fatal.
Patrick | Email | Homepage | 08.10.04 - 7:09 am | #

Reading that shook me a little. . .I'm going to have to comment on the point you made later.

One thing for sure. . .I'm still very, very connected to you two. I'm truly grateful God spared you, D, and your in-laws. Did anyone else in the place get shot?
Bill | Email | Homepage | 08.10.04 - 7:49 am | #

No, glory to God, he didn't seem to be a very good shot...
Patrick | Email | Homepage | 08.10.04 - 9:31 am | #

OK. . .I'm over the inital shock of your story. Now I can comment on your point.

First off, I confess I make disparaging remarks about myself rather carelessly. I accept your critique in that area.

However, that really wasn't what I was trying to get across. I was trying to say that I see a connection between shutting down emotionally and my unwillingness (at times) to face the complexity of life squarely. The thing that your near-death experience brings out vividly is that life is complex. You had no choice but to face it, and you faced it well in my opinion. Crossing yourself, praying for mercy, and protecting your wife are all straight-forward ways of facing death. Sure, they reveal your desire to live. . .but you would be a sicker person if you didn't care about living. Your post-experience fantasies of wishing you had been "Superman" are most likely not very helpful to you. Don't get me wrong, if I were in your shoes I would certainly be second-guessing myself as well etc., so I sympathize with the emotional trauma this event produced and continues to produce. However, from my vantage point, it seems there is something greater here. That is, there was an intense connection between waking up with the "real feeling of having to stand before God" and then facing that possiblity in the flesh a few hours later. I don't know what that connection is. . .but it sure seems God is speaking to you.
Bill | Email | Homepage | 08.10.04 - 12:06 pm | #

I see what you're saying. I think sometimes there's a certain pressure to seek out more "complexity" because we feel dull and bored, but you're right--life IS complex. But I think one needn't seek it out--it will come to you, as I discovered. The trick, I guess, must be to be ready for those jolts, so that prayer will be instant and reflexive, that our thought is to immediately cry out to God. I'm still a bit confused...
Patrick | Email | Homepage | 08.11.04 - 6:36 am | #

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Fabio | Email | Homepage | 12.15.06 - 8:45 am | #